i'm writing a book - right here!

[AAC Cadet Leader]

editing__________

[cfgray]

Martha,

Sometimes tellers of stories such as yours (can there be many stories such as yours? I doubt it) opt to run the narrative as a chronology, makes sense it would seem... Point A to Point B.... etc., etc.

But you have another option, mostly due to the amazing richness of your journey, full of color, full of interesting people, unusual events (say, for instance, flying with Cole Palen in his Jenny, how many can claim that distinction?), drama, human failings, kindness and generosity, triumph in the midst of adversity, loneliness and an excess of people crowding you... you know and I cannot, but seems to me that all that is such a valuable and interesting dimension to this story, your story, that it would be submerged beneath an endless run of dates and courses.

So... Please do consider using a thematic approach, taking blocks of stories and associating them into chapters... barnstormers, cropdusters, odd moments, fear, joy, romance, adversity... and so on.

Just a thought.

What a joy it is to read what you are posting.

Best,
cfgray

[AAC Cadet Leader]

[ just a note: i am answering replies to this thread individually by PM. thank you all who are offering me your great suggestions and encouragement. please keep posting!

also, i'm inserting photos and actively revising many previous posts as i find typos, add information, and restructure my numerous run-on sentences.
~martha ]

[AAC Cadet Leader]

"...A week after high school graduation some of Seniors’ parents were decorating the cafeteria for the prom. The few kids who did not have a date to the prom, including me, were invited to come see it all set up so we could take a look the fun we were going to be missing. Cindy Hillenbrand’s mom was setting up to take Polaroid photos of the prom couples and she asked me if I wanted my picture taken. Sure, I said, but I first needed to make a little sign. I found a piece of paper and a magic marker and wrote on it, ‘Bye Mom and Dad, don’t worry about me.’ Then Mrs. Hillenbrand took a picture of me holding the little sign.

The next morning, just before sunrise, after my dad had left for work and before my mom got up, I strapped on my forty-pound backpack, tip-toed downstairs and placed the photo on the kitchen table. I look back now and realize how incredibly shocking and hurtful that must have been to my poor parents to find it on the table and me gone, but that was how the eighteen year-old me chose to say goodbye. If I ever have kids and they try doing something like that to me, I’ll kill ‘em!

So then, very quietly I left the house and started walking the three miles to Cleveland Hopkins Airport. About a mile short of the entrance to Sundorph Aviation which is the general aviation section there, a man pulled over in front of me and offered me a car ride. As it turned out he was an engineer at NASA and one of my neighbors near our old house. I took it.

He dropped me off at Sundorph and there I waited outside the little field office. No one was around, but it wasn’t long before two men showed up, and walked out to a small plane. Thinking back now, it was probably a Cessna 172.

I walked over to them and asked the man who was unlocking the door of the plane, "Sir, do you have room in your plane to take me along to wherever you're going? I'm traveling around and just want to go someplace new. It doesn't matter where. I'd just like to ride along - if that’s okay."

The man turned to his friend with a surprised, blank stare, then turned back to me and said, "Sure, we've got an empty back seat. To pay for your ride, you can run to the line shack over there and get me a quart of oil - here's fifty cents." (Remember, this was in 1976.) I handed the pilot my backpack and happily ran over to buy the oil.

That first aerial hitchhike took me up to South Bass Island in Lake Erie, and to that colorful little tourist town of Put-In-Bay, where I had been on my first ride in the Tin Goose, four years before. The next day, I was offered a speedboat ride the short way across Lake Erie, on up to Leamington Point, the southernmost spot in Canada.

On my third day, a car ride took me to the nearest small airport called Buttonville and once again, in the matter of about a half an hour, I was on another plane that took me to Toronto. On the fourth day, another plane took me back to Buttonville. Then the fifth day I got a small twin engine plane ride with a pilot named ‘Manley’ who took me to Quebec, then to Ottawa. Somewhere in there I saw Montreal, too.

During one of the flights, the pilot was a German fellow named ‘Klaus.’ He offered to let me steer the plane for a while and that was another first for me. I held the control wheel and was amazed at how easy it was to fly—nothing like I'd expected. It was a lot like driving a car. Of course, at the time I wasn't doing much more than holding the wings level on a calm day. Klaus' generosity to let me steer, was probably what inspired me to enroll at Kent State a year later and take up flying.”

“So, how long did that first hitchhiking journey last?” John asked.

“Only about a week. Things came to a sudden halt for me in Ottawa when the Canadian and U. S. Air Traffic Controllers all went on strike. Remember that in 1976?”

“Yeah, I do. Please, continue.”

“Well, the small planes stopped flying because of the strike, and I was stuck on the ground in my little pup tent in a field next to an airport, and it was raining - so I was wet, cold, tired and homesick. Still, I had sense enough not to try to hitchhike all the way back home to Ohio by car. I made my way to a bus terminal and took a sixteen hour-long Greyhound back to Cleveland.

At four in the morning our bus arrived at the dim, creepy-looking Greyhound station in downtown Cleveland. I called my parents from the payphone there and my father was there to pick me up in about twenty minutes, which had to be a land-speed record from Fairview to downtown. We were back home by five and my mother was up and sleepy-eyed, but eager to hear all about my adventure. I talked for hours non-stop, then exhaustedly fell asleep.

I remember when I woke up in the afternoon, Mom gave me an old butter knife and asked me to go scrape the grass out of the cracks in the front sidewalk. While I did the simple chore, all I could think of was that I had been all-powerful up above in airplanes, able to see so far, and here I was now, scraping grass out of cracks."

[Kilian]

Martha. Thanks so much for letting us forumites have what i consider way more than a first insight !! Take the advice of the publisher serious and dont give out too much information that could be included in the book here.
From what i have just read now (last five pages took a while ) you HAVE a talent to narrate! Its the personal experiences you made with the people you met during your journey what makes the book interesting. A listing with something like Bios of all pilots is nearby impossible to include and would definately be cut out in parts by editors. I also think a second book just with these Bios would not be possible to sell. So keep up with what you remember the most interesting parts or encounters of the journey. The logbook you made is a very good thing to help remember the chronology.

At last i have a suggestion that may solve the problem of not beeing able to include every pilots story (-when i think of it, even the pictures of EVERY guy you met there would go beyond the scope of a one volume publication-) and having a bad conscience of not to do so. How about a list at the end of the book (I know this may sound rude but...) like an appendix that lists every flight City A -> City B Pilot & Machine.

Additional you could create then a map where every flight is included with a line (or arrow to indicate flight direction) and then you can give index numbers for the people and aircraft list that will be fitted into the map. This could be the only way to honor ALL of them and not taking too many pages for one volume. I cannot imagine any of them would be disappointed wiht such a solution when they read their name and see such a map. Thats just the idea i got while reading this complete thread. Maybe you have already planned something likely.

Keep up with it and
best regards

Kilian

[AAC Cadet Leader]

Originally Posted by Kilian

Martha. Thanks so much for letting us forumites have what i consider way more than a first insight !!

you're welcome, killian, and thanks for your excellent advice and for keeping up with this daily.
also, thank you cfgray, marc, mike O. and mike B., karen, william, tim, john, frankie, barrett, scott, spacecrow, who'd i miss?

Take the advice of the publisher serious and dont give out too much information that could be included in the book here.

correction, i said it was advice of a published author, not a publisher. i do not have a publisher yet, however am hoping a really, really good one (and big one) will come to me. here i am!
and, btw, i'm not the least bit interested in self-publishing.

From what i have just read now (last five pages took a while ) you HAVE a talent to narrate!

thank you. glad you think so.

Its the personal experiences you made with the people you met during your journey what makes the book interesting.

agree.

A listing with something like Bios of all pilots is nearby impossible to include and would definately be cut out in parts by editors.
I also think a second book just with these Bios would not be possible to sell. So keep up with what you remember the most interesting parts or encounters of the journey.
The logbook you made is a very good thing to help remember the chronology.

agree.
agree.
agree.

At last i have a suggestion that may solve the problem of not beeing able to include every pilots story (-when i think of it, even the pictures of EVERY guy you met there would go beyond the scope of a one volume publication-) and having a bad conscience of not to do so. How about a list at the end of the book (I know this may sound rude but...) like an appendix that lists every flight City A -> City B Pilot & Machine.

i have already created the lists, map, pilot photos and appendix you describe, except that some of it has to be reformatted to modern software.

Additional you could create then a map where every flight is included with a line (or arrow to indicate flight direction) and then you can give index numbers for the people and aircraft list that will be fitted into the map.

also done and ready to insert.

This could be the only way to honor ALL of them and not taking too many pages for one volume.

my hope, too. thanks again, killian, ~m

[AAC Cadet Leader]

“About a year later, to the great relief of my parents I finally did sign up for college. I agreed to go to Kent State University in Ohio if I could take flying courses with the intention of becoming an airline pilot. At Kent I earned my Private, Commercial, Instrument and Flight Instructor ratings. In the classrooms, I had courses in weather, aviation history, aircraft engines and systems, welding and riveting, Air Traffic Control and a few other aviation courses. And when I wasn’t in class, I worked on the line crew at Kent State Airport, fueling and towing the airplanes and plowing snow off the runway. I was the first female to get a line job there. Getting that line job is a story in itself, but another time…”

“So, did you get your degree in Aviation?” John asked.

“Well, almost. I did get a minor in it. During my Junior year I had to find a way out of the Calculus and Physics courses as they would have meant certain death to my B+ grade point average. So, I went to the Dean and he told me I already had more than enough aviation credits for a minor and talked me into switching my major to Art which has always come easily to me. I made the switch and graduated in 1981 with a B.A. in Art and a minor in Aerospace Flight Technology.

After college, I added on one more rating to my pilot certificate, a Multi-Engine Rating that I got by taking a three-day, 'crash course' in an old dog Apache in Blythe, California. I had driven there by myself in my motor home from Ohio, painting signs and names on the backs of boats along the way. "

“So, did you become an Airline Pilot?” John asked as we could see the grass runway and hangars of Antique Airfield a mile ahead.

“Well, no…but I did make use of my CFI, teaching two primary flight students back in 1982 and give a biennial flight review now and then... I’ve found painting pictures and signs is less life-threatening. But now my new ambition is to become a Skywriter or a Spray Pilot– except that I wouldn’t want to handle the chemicals, so I guess those are out.

So, am I nuts, John?”

"I haven't made my assessment yet, but I'll let you know in the future," he said.

~

[AAC Cadet Leader]

Getting the Idea

September 17, 1987, 2 p.m. written from my journal notes ~
Sitting in my motor home, currently homesteaded beneath the big, old oak tree at Orlando Country Airport in Zellwood, Florida.

I think I'll always have ambitions to fly for a living, though I dream more about it then I actually do something about it. My ears are always open for the perfect job, like the job my friend Johnnie Vincent has, skywriting and towing banners, or as Johnnie says, "draggin' rags." Or I could be a blimp pilot…or maybe I'll try again for a front seat of an airliner one day. But, what I really want to be is a barnstormer! But how can I be a barnstormer without an aeroplane?

I know, I'll get one of those old WWI $600 war-surplus Jennies. I'll fix it up, just enough to make it fly and travel the country, giving rides and thrilling all the people that go to the county fairs! Or maybe I'll fly with a flying circus! Or even start my own…yeah, that’s it - a Flying Circus! World-Famous, Death-Defying Acts! I can see it now...Flying low over the field, upside down, a dashing young man holding on to the struts of my biplane's left wings…the thrilled audience below waving at us, our silk scarves waving back.

Our magnificent troupe will travel the world, buzzing down Main Street in every town, showing the world what real fun is! New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris. Waving from the back of our parade car, Roscoe Turner on my left arm and Lucky Lindy on my right, all around us tickertape falling like snow. We'll be taken to the White House where FDR will welcome us as his honored guests... Wait a minute...

Wake up Martha! Barnstorming and the glamour days of aviation are long gone. They're history. Today, a Main Street buzz-job would cost you your pilot license and that old Jenny will cost a tad more than $600. Oh, how depressing, I was born too late...

Hey, I've got it. I'VE GOT IT!! BRAINSTORM #471: How I can fulfill my dream of becoming a barnstormer:

I'll hitchhike rides and take photographs of the pilots with their old aeroplanes to go into a book someday. That's it! And maybe I can get around the whole country doing this!

Okay, so maybe I won't be a barnstormer in the true sense of the word, but I'll fly around the country in old aeroplanes and rough it like the real barnstormers did, sleeping under the wing, going where the wind takes us and meeting good people wherever we land...yeah!

~

[AAC Cadet Leader]

The Planning Stages

Entries from my journal before the journey~
October 15, 1987, 4 p.m. Sitting in my car, at Bob White Field in Zellwood, Florida, watching a Stearman doing touch and go's.



Last week I told my idea about doing a barnstorming aerial hitchhike to Denver Kimpel, a friend of mine, who is doing restoration work on a 1929 Waco in the main hangar, at Bob White Field. In addition to telling me that I'm nuts and am going to get myself killed, he liked my idea about writing a book about it—that is, about the adventure—not the getting killed part. I’m not sure how to go about writing a book though, but I’ll figure that out later. For now, I'll just try to keep up this journal I've started and put my thoughts on paper when the inspiration hits me.

October 17, 1987, 8 a.m. Sitting in a lawn chair, out front of my motor home, watching the crop duster on the other side of the hill.
Yesterday afternoon, I sent in an ad to Trade-A-Plane, asking for rides in aeroplanes through all the 48 states. I placed it under the Personals, figuring everybody reads that because it's the most interesting section in the thick, yellow newspaper.

November 10, 1987, 2 p.m. In my motor home.
Today, the first response to my ad came—a postcard from a man named Earl Caudell, who writes "Great idea!" and that he'll give me a ride in his 1956 Cessna Birddog. The postmark is from Pensacola, Florida. I'm on my way.

November 15, 1987, 3:30 p.m. At Ronnie's sign shop in Plymouth, Florida, working on a design for a sandblasted window of a trolley car.

It recently occurred to me that I should set a few definite rules for my plan. A couple of the letters I received this week, have been from good folks offering rides in fairly new airplanes—a 1981 Cessna 172 and a 1985 Lear Jet. I'm lucky to get their offers and would like to accept them, but it seems to me that going Barnstormer-style in modern hardware would be a contradiction. I need to come up with some rules for myself in order to make it a real challenge so I can get as many interesting old aeroplanes in my logbook as possible.

November 17, 1987, 3:30 a.m. My best ideas usually wake me up out of a deep sleep. The Rules for my Journey – here they are:

1. Each leg of the journey must be made in a vintage aircraft, being at least twenty-five years old. No modern aircraft, cars, taxis, busses, trains, bicycles, or roller skates can take me to the next airfield along the journey. I will stay stranded at an airfield until I find a pilot to come get me with a qualifying "vintage" aeroplane. I can ride in cars and other forms of transportation, including modern aircraft, but, only for local rides and side trips to the journey.

2. I must land (and plant my feet) in each of the 48 contiguous states and...

3. Fly with at least one different plane and pilot from each state.

4. I must not die during the journey.

Thanksgiving Day, 1987, 10 a.m. In my motor home.
Going over to Bill & Pam's house (my brother and sister-in-law’s) in a little while, for Thanksgiving Dinner. I've been up since three in the morning, writing letters to all of the chapter presidents of the Antique Airplane Association, telling them of my goals and asking them to pass my letter along to any of their members who have aeroplanes at least 25 years old. Total count 47 letters outgoing. More mail than I've ever written and sent at one time, in my life. I believe that there are enough good people out there with old aeroplanes who’d be interested to be a part of an adventure like this and help make it happen. It really can happen! This crazy dream just might come true.

December 21, 1987, 3 p.m. Bundled up in my cold motor home.
Even though this is central Florida, it still gets cold here in winter. Outside, it's overcast and a damp 48 degrees. In here, the heater is set to 450 degrees - that being the propane-powered oven on the broiler setting with it's door open. Although it gets the top half of the air in here warm, from about waist level and below, it stays plenty chilly. It's odd, but there's a very definite atmospheric boundary layer in my little house on wheels. Every now and then, I get up and fan the air around with a newspaper, but within ten minutes, it separates back into two layers of warm and cold.

The responses to my ad in Trade-A-Plane have been coming in steadily, about three or four a week and all positive. It's fun getting to know people by mail. They all seem willing to help out and just as excited about the idea as I am. It's a good thing that I'm getting some responses from the ad, because I've been pretty discouraged about the lack of interest from all those letters I sent out to the forty-seven AAA chapter presidents. Not one of them has written me back - boo hiss. Well maybe they're all just too busy organizing their Christmas meetings. Oh, well.

Two days 'til I fly home to Mom and Dad's for Christmas. Haven't told them about my big plans yet. I'll wait to tell them in person, so I can make sure they are sitting down.

December 26, 1987, 8 p.m. In my old bedroom at my parent’s home in Fairview Park, Ohio.
Well, I told Mom and Dad today. Then I showed them all the neat letters that have come in so far from my Trade-A-Plane ad. They took it all right. No heart attacks. Guess they've been well-prepared by my shocking them with a new wild idea, once every few months, since about age eleven. Actually, Mom sounds pretty excited about the whole idea. Dad seems somewhat skeptical, but that's how dads are supposed to react to their daughter’s wacky ideas. After I told them all about my plans he said, “Just don’t take the same map that Amelia Earhart did!”

January 15, 1988, 8:15 a.m. Back down in Florida, on my way from the post office in Zellwood, Florida to Ronnie's shop to help out with some sign work.
At last I heard a response (though an indirect one) from all those letters I wrote on Thanksgiving. None of the AAA chapter presidents ever wrote me back to tell me I had a good idea or even a stupid one.

But this morning, in my post office box, I found a big, beautiful hand-colored envelope with airplanes and clouds all over the front of it. Inside the package was a terrific 20-page grassroots newspaper, called the SPORTSMAN'S AVIATION BOOSTER, accompanied by a long, friendly, letter from its editor and publisher, A. Lee Spencer in Iola, Kansas. The letter looked as if it had been typed on a 1909 Underwood that was last cleaned during the Armistice. Mr. Spencer wrote that at their January meeting, the chapter president, Charles Chauncy from Chanute, Kansas handed him the letter I sent.

Mr. Spencer says he thinks my idea's a winner and that he'd like to do articles about it, and follow me through the completion of my goals. He said he could also help out with names and addresses of people who might agree to give me a ride or might offer a place to stay overnight in my travels. He says he's 76 years old and has had a life-long love of aviation. He sounds really nice. I didn't think that newspaper publishers ever wrote anything but editorials.

February 6, 1988, 6 p.m. In my motor home.
I started a master list by state of all of the names of people who are offering a ride or hospitality and I have a map of the USA with pins in it, showing where they are. I now see that I've still got a lot of work ahead in order to make this thing happen. There are a lot of states that don't have any pins in yet.

February 10, 1988, 3:20 a.m. In my motor home.
Since the idea to barnstorm hitchhike came to me a few months ago, I have been eating, drinking, breathing and sleeping my dream. I wake up in the middle of most nights, just like tonight, unable to sleep, full of excitement and ideas to add to my barnstorming plans.

Lately, I've gotten in the habit of getting up early, most mornings while it’s still dark, and going to the little diner in Zellwood, where I can get a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice, toast and eggs. The owners don’t seem to mind if I take my time eating for an hour or so, while I write reply letters to the people who have responded to my ad. My favorite spot to sit is in the big cushy booth seat next to the old iron radiator.

A number of favorable replies are also coming from the names Lee Spencer sent me. Lee is turning out to be quite a friend. It seems he writes me every third day, with encouragement, ideas and names to add to my list. He is also helping by writing personally to many of his subscribers, telling them about my plans. Where does he find the time and energy?

[AAC Cadet Leader]

Planning Stages continued

February 23, 1988, 6:15 a.m. At the diner.
Everyone is asking me, when my journey will start. My sights are set toward late spring, or early summer, but soon, I'll have to try to approximate how long it'll take and set a starting date. I really have no idea. If I had my own plane it would be easy to figure out. I'd just draw a projected line on the map of the USA, measure the distance, then multiply by airspeed, add extra time for weather and fudge factor and I'd have my answer. Problem is, I don't know how many times I'm going to get stranded, what speeds the aeroplanes will be flying, how often weather will hold us up, and the biggest unknown is the the route that will unfold.

I'm guessing the entire journey will take anywhere from four to seven months, but I just don't know. One major fear though, is the thought of getting stuck somewhere in northern Idaho, in ten feet of snow, in the late winter, waiting for the weather and radial engines to thaw so I can get back home.

March 3, 1988 2 p.m. In my motor home.
This thing is turning into a monster. I'm now getting about fifteen to twenty letters a week, many of them from people with whom I've corresponded once or twice already. I reply to everyone who writes me and I’m trying to memorize their names and states—looking forward to meeting them in person—and feel really lucky to be making so many new friends. My master list has grown to include about 125 people from 32 states.

May 17, 1988 noontime. In my motorhome.
I set the leaving date for May 28, 1988, so there are only ten more days to plan. For weeks, I’ve been packing, choosing just the right items to take along. I’ve been sewing things and combing the Zellwood Antique Flea Market for things to wear. Found the greatest old leather high-laced boots there last weekend that fit perfectly. The guy said they are from the 1920's. They'll go perfect with my jodhpurs. I also found a fantastic old WWI leather helmet and "Lindbergh-style" pair of goggles at a booth at Sun ’n Fun, in Lakeland, Florida a few weeks ago.

It has been challenging trying to plan to pack enough for a trip that will take several months, yet pack no more than will fit into the small cargo compartment of an open cockpit aeroplane. We’re not talking Samsonite luggage, here.

My packing list:
Pilot Logbook; Master list of contacts; journal; pen, pencil and marker; Rand McNally USA Mapbook; Pilot map of USA showing all listed airports; camera & film; mini tape recorder; postage stamps; Flying Magazine w/ Gordon Baxter’s article; Air Adventurers Membership cards to hand out; my pilot license (real) and a second (not real) antique-looking pilot license—just for fun to go with my antique flying clothes. Clothing: Goggles (1 pair tinted, 1 clear); helmet; white silk scarf; high-laced brown boots; ankle-high Victorian black boots; two pairs of jodhpurs; black cotton antique blouse; white muslin and lace blouse; black tafetta scallop-hemmed long skirt; vintage outfit I styled and sewed, patterned after a photograph of early parachutist Dolly Shephard; canvas cargo coat; 3 pairs antique ribbed knee sox; understuff; plain t-shirt; cotton shorts; blue jeans; and lightweight tennis shoes. Also: small bag of cosmetics, toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo and hairbrush.

To carry all of the above, I’ve found, a sturdy canvas WWII parachute bag; a 1920’s 8 x14” canvas Wells Fargo bag; and a I sewed a garment bag from a piece of an old olive drab Army parachute.

Friday, May 27, 1988 10 p.m. In my motor home.
Tomorrow’s the big day! All day today I rushed around taking care of last minute details, including unplugging my motor home from its phone cord and water hose at Orlando Country Airport, and driving a mile down the road to store it in a tropical Florida lot behind Ronnie’s sign shop. Also, I did a radio and a TV interview—my first ever—how frightful and fun those were!

The gate to the sign shop’s lot was locked when I came back this evening for one more night of slumber in my motor home. So, I parked my little car outside the six-foot wire fence and had to climb over it to get to my motorhome. Well, I’m just glad to see that it will be safely stored here. I’ve set my clock to go off at 5 a.m. — what a dreadful thought.

~